Thief
by emisaXD
Summary: A spidery limb snaked over her shoulder, softly wrapping itself around her screaming throat. She turned around to face the creature behind her, and… Black.
1. Chapter 1

Suki stood in the center of a small clearing, edgily examining the forest around her. The hulking silhouettes of trees and boulders stood silently surrounding her. To her anxious eyes they looked like the forms of lethal monsters come to devour her. She heard it again. A skittering noise cut through the silence of the night, roaring in her ears. She whipped around, just in time to catch a shadow slip behind a boulder. She stifled a gasp of horror.

In the all-consuming night around her, she couldn't be sure what she was seeing. Was it a hallucination? An innocent creature of the forest? A prison guard come to take her back to the fire nation, or an ally? She sucked in a deep, shaky breath. She hadn't believed it when she was able to break out of the Fire Nation prison, and now she wondered if she even had at all. Was this just Azula playing mind games on her?

She resolved that it would be best to spend the night in the clearing, because not having to cross the threshold of the clearing into the gloomy forest meant she would not have to face the ominous creature that may be lurking there.

Gradually, she lowered her tremulous body down to the blanket of pine needles below. Every muscle in her body was quivering with icy fear and adrenaline. As she put her arms around herself, finally a breath of warmth came over her, soothing her. It came again, a hot breath of air that slithered down her back and made her skin tingle. The creature behind her let out a soft chuckle, blowing little winds on the skin of the neck, and sending a shiver through every frozen nerve in her body. A spidery limb snaked over her shoulder, softly wrapping itself around her screaming throat. She turned around to face the creature behind her, and…

Black.


	2. Chapter 2

_There is NOT enough meat in this forest,_ Sokka thought bitterly. _I don't get why we cant go into the nearest village, just for a MINUTE?_ "Too dangerous, we have to keep ourselves hidden," he said, in a mock imitation of Katara. He gave the basket a frustrated jerk, causing all of the fruit he had collected to fly out and roll across the ground. He huffed and kicked at the trunk of a tree before chasing after them as they rolled down the incline in the trail. The escaped fruits finally rolled to a stop in a small, flat clearing. Sokka cursed them as he gathered them and put them back in his basket.

He was just heading back to camp as he noticed a woman laying in the middle of the clearing. Suspiciously, he scooted behind a tree and examined her through the branches. She didn't look too threatening. She was wearing Fire Nation prison garb, so it must mean she was an enemy to the fire nation, a definite plus.

His eyes widened as realization dawned on him. He had looked at the very same back of the head he was looking at now, many times before. He had stared at it with affection and guilt when he had made the mistake of pulling away from her, and he observed this slender body when no one was looking. And he had run his fingers through the soft auburn hair that was now lying tangled on the forest floor.

"SUKI!" he called, dropping the basket and running to the center of the clearing and kneeling beside her. All of the fruit he had gathered spilled in every direction, but he didn't care at all "Suki, it's me, I can't believe…" He took her shoulder and shook her vigorously, wishing that she would wake up so they could talk. He took her shoulder and rolled her over so she was facing him. "Oh my god…"

The face that he was looking at was not the face of Suki. You really couldn't call it a face at all. What he was staring at a blank canvas. A once-occupied one that had been wiped clear of the art which once occupied it.

"Oh my god…"

Once he had gotten over his initial shock, he had taken her body back to camp, and shown it to the others, asking what had happened.

"I don't get it…." whispered Aang, shaking his head in disbelief.

The group leaned in, listening with bated breath.

"I don't know how Koh got out of the Spirit World."


End file.
